Transcription
Oh yeah, yes, oh this is the second one. That's what I, I thought it was a one-off, because it should have this. Yes, okay, because I had a shirt. All right, we got it. Okay, good. I broke the silence. Okay. Can you guys hear me through the webinar? Testing, testing, one, two, three. Testing, testing, one, two, three. Real good. Okay, perfect. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our ULotus webinar today. My name is Donna, and I will be your host and your moderator for today's class here at ULotus Institute of Integrative Medicine.
We have been holding educational seminars and webinars for over a decade, and it's been such a wonderful journey, filled with many experiences and lessons taught by speakers who are not only experts in their respective fields, but more importantly, they're willing to share their wealth of knowledge with all of us. We believe that the future of TCM and the advancement of Chinese medicine can only be obtained through continued growth, learning, and progress, and that's our goal here at ULotus, and we're so glad that you are here joining us.
So, a little housekeeping before we get started: our class will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. We have a lunch break from about 1 to 2 p.m., and two short breaks in the morning and two in the afternoon. Also, the Adobe allows only one login per user, so if you're logged in more than once, you will hear an echoing sound. To resolve that, just go ahead and close those extra login windows, or after a period of time, Adobe does help remove the extra logins for you. And so let me give you a room. You do not need to sign in; logging in to the webinar is your sign-in. So what you're seeing on your screen on the top left-hand corner is the video feed, and to the right of the video feed is the PowerPoint for today's class.
Now, if you've been on the course access page, you will have seen a lot of downloads there. The first one is a student packet for you, and those contain some, and also some PowerPoint slides, and that's the, that's a, that's a worksheet for you to fill out throughout the day. So hang on to that, and you'll be needing that packet for day one and two. So that one's a required one to print, and that's the one that our live attendees—that's the one that you guys have—I printed it out for you. The other ones are PowerPoint, and there are three downloads today, and so for that, that you're not required to print them out; you, it's not necessary, because the main, the most important part is the downloaded, the first one, the downloaded best student handout. So as long as you have that one printed out, and make sure you have your rulers—they're see-through rulers—both thirty centimeters with you, because you'll be needing those also, and color pens, pencils, if you—if those are not required but highly recommended. And also, the last download is an article, and that's for you to read; that's for you to have and read on your own time, if you like. Okay. So if you experience—and then to—I'm starting in to—on the bottom you'll find two boxes. To the left is the chat room, and here in the chart room is where you can connect with your colleagues who are also attending today's webinar. Alive, do you want to let you know that today's webinar is being recorded? So if you do have some, an old friend that you would like to private chat with, you can do so. If you look at the chat room right now, on the top right-hand corner of this chat room, you'll find some horizontal lines. You can click on that, and then you can start your private chat with whomever you like. And if you have a question for myself or any technical issues, please send a private chat to the host, and then we will bring you into our own little private chat. So when you type into the host, we can see your messages, but we're not able to respond to that; that is why we need to put, bring it in to another private chat. Okay. And then to the right of the chat room, you'll find upcoming events here at ULotus, as well as important information about today's class. So look, take a look at that area for a periodic, periodic, a period of time. And all right. So I think all the logistics part—if you experience any technical issues, such as slowing, skipping, or stopping, you'll want to check your internet feed. Usually this happens to those who are using a wireless connection, and if you're doing that, we do recommend that you connect with the internet directly. That will give you the best feed, and that way the, it will, you will, the chances of disruptions are very, not very likely. But if you can't, you can try sitting closer to your router, and if you need any technical assistance, we're here to help you the best that we can. All right. So for today's class, we have three groups with us today. The first one is our watch-it-free group. These, this group, you register for today's class for free, and you are able to watch today's webinar for free, but it does not include CEUs, and it doesn't include the two-week video replay period. However, if you would like to upgrade to the second group, which is our paid group, you can get CEUs for today's class, and you can also get that two-week video replay period. And if you want to upgrade from that to our Gold Pass membership, which is our third group, then you will get access to the video for as long as you are a member. So that's the best, that's the best option, and not only do you get access to today's class, but all of our online courses and all of our webinars, and you also get sponsored benefits from our sponsor, Evergreen Herbs and Helio-. So you may want to check that out. I'll be sending you guys more information a little later today, and at the end of the day we will be raffling a one-month Gold Pass membership. So make sure to stay until the end; only those who stay for the entire class do qualify.
Okay. Now that the housekeeping is done, let's go ahead and get started. Today's class is Abdominal Acupuncture for Pain, Part One, with Dr. Paul Ryan, who spent 18 years in China studying, practicing, and researching Chinese medicine. He completed long-term apprenticeships with two of China's most influential acupuncturists: today, Dr. Doyle of Doyle Acupuncture and Professor Bo, the founder of abdominal acupuncture, and both recognized him as an inner-circle apprentice. The year he spent working as an acupuncture specialist at the Guangzhou Provincial Hospital TCM was a tremendous opportunity for accumulating clinical experience. He currently runs a successful private practice in New York City and teaches acupuncture around the world. We are so honored to have him join us today. Let's go ahead and give him a big warm welcome.
Thank you. Thank you. Well, it's my pleasure to be here, Donna. Thank you very much for that introduction, and I also want to thank ULotus very much for, for using the technology in this way to give it, to bring us all together. This is my first webinar, and actually, on, on Thursday when I gave my first one-hour, it was an experience that I've never had before, speaking to people around the world and talking and sharing. And so it's just, this is a new experience for me, and I, and although I've taught quite a bit since I've been back from, from China—and when I came back in 2012, I've taught in the United States in smaller classrooms and seminars, taught in DLM programs—this is my first webinar experience, the first time using this technology. So that said, I'm looking forward to it, and trying to somehow fair manage the interact, interaction in the classroom with the webinars. So this is all gonna be quite, quite new for me. So the, I also wanted to thank Peter Young, who I met back in, in Hong Kong when I was teaching abdominal acupuncture there, as well as taking courses in Osteopathy, and he's the one who connected me with ULotus and really encouraged me to come out and teach. And I've been quite shy about it, though, because I wasn't sure how to, how to make this connection between what I've created, as in terms of Damo acupuncture as a very hands-on practical course, how to make that transition to the webinar. And so I hope that I have, in some way, and this, and that in my innovative thinking, if I can call it that, created some kind of interactive experience that people can have online as well. So that said, the easy part is coming up, which is the information for abdominal acupuncture, which really speaks for itself, and Donna has already shared quite a bit about me. I'll forego that for more of that information for now. I think I have a little bit more to say later, but whether I'd like to start now is asking you all some questions, maybe some people in here, but also our webinar people. So I'm going to go through a couple of slides. You're out first to say that this is a course on abdominal acupuncture; we're going to be teaching abdominal acupuncture for pain, which is the way Doctor Bo teaches the entry-level for the, for the, for his system. So the first, I have some poll questions that I asked him to put together, and just so I have an idea, 'cause I usually, when I teach in the classroom, I go around the room and I try to figure out, you know, who's, who's, who's where and where they're practicing. So I wanted to know first if you would answer this question for me: Where are you viewing from, and where would you plan on practicing abdominal acupuncture? All right, USA. Okay, in South Africa. Okay, we'll just see that through the screen here, move that out of the way. Can I move the poll, or is—okay, I get yourself a little bit for the moment. Second, see mostly missing South—so South Africa. Well, so that's one other that I didn't include on there. All right, so the majority is through the United States, and I think my next question then is going to be, you know, kind of where, and you know, in aware in the United States. I don't know if I put that one on there. No. Norway. Vancouver. Is one of the reasons why I'm asking this question actually is because I have been getting inquiries from potential patients from the United States and, and France and other parts of the world looking for abdominal acupuncture; they're referring to, ah, quite often to a video or a film that Dr. Bo was with; they featured in, but I guess one segment was on him and doing abdominal acupuncture, and you can find that video on Amazon Prime; it's called *The Gut: The Second Brain*. And in that video, Dr. Bo is demonstrating not only abdominal acupuncture for depression, but also showing how the research that he's been doing with it. So people have been coming to me for various conditions, like Parkinson's, primarily depression, because of this video, and I've been asked for people in Maryland, Seattle, or actually in Spokane, I think, Washington, as among the places that I'm remembering now, Boston, in other places where people are interested in experiencing abdominal acupuncture using the therapy. So it's good for me to know, and it'll be good for us to create some kind of network after this that where I can, we can refer patients to, to, to people. So let's go on to the next one. So yes, Seattle, in San Francisco, Orange County. Oh, good. How did you learn about abdominal acupuncture? So where did, where did you learn yourself? So ULotus. Wow, ULotus is doing great work. So you'll notice is bringing everybody together here. Some from another teacher, a few were introduced to it at school, as I said, the articles and videos, Internet, and very few. So very few have had that experience where patients are, are actually coming to you for it, but ULotus. Okay, David Chipsy. Roger Lor—I think I know the name Roger Larsen, maybe years ago he wrote an article on abdominal acupuncture, Africa, I think that's right. Don Lee, in that Vermont or Virginia, and a Doctor Bo. Doctor Bo has come to the United States and taught before, cups, which California, a few times, but no one here who is, who's, who's taking a stick, taking the course has had a chance to study with him. He came a couple times to, after Southern California, to teach up in Irvine; one of his apprentices is there, Dr. Sharon Chow, has, has invited him a couple times, and there was an American Abdominal Acupuncture Medical Association, for which supposedly I am the vice president, but that I think that has not been functioning very much in the last year or so, or two. So David Chipsy, he wrote an article about it, and then depression and reward. Okay. Okay. Let's go on to the next question. So how many of you out there are actually, more than have heard of it, or actually, actually have studied it a little bit and are practicing it, you know, and if you're practicing, you know before you got, where you get your training, and I think some of you have already answered that question through David Chipsy if you've learned it before, and ULotus, is that an article or a book on video that you mentioned? Paul, teaching hospital in China. Now, a lot is excited article; I'm not quite sure which article I mentioned I'm referring to. I mean, I, there was an article in that, in that uploaded that you can download, which I wrote years ago, did for abdominal acupuncture from Paul in New York. No experience of, no experience pain conditions. So okay, a lot of people have had no experience, and people, some experience, and primarily I think abdominal acupuncture here in, in the United States is being practiced for pain, if it's being practiced. Mainly, that's what I've taught. I don't know the extent to what Mr. Chipsy has taught. How, yes, the Johanna, that's *The Gut: The Second Brain*; that is a video on Amazon Prime; that's what I was referring to, and Dr. Bo, which I was introduced a little bit more later, has been traveling around the world teaching, but mostly in Europe, and in Europe they have work, they're quite advanced in using abdominal acupuncture; he's been going there since 2001 to teaching Italy, but in the United States, especially among the English-speaking community, Doctor Bo's work is not really well known; it's not really well known; it's mostly among the Asian community in the United States. Okay. Okay. Bins, anything? Thank you for introducing yourself. For those who, for those who do use it now, this is a little smaller subset: What is the most important obstacle that you have in the, or, and the way you want to use it? Is it lack of information, maybe moving towards you, then get another right in there? Is it a lack of information, you know, kind of disease you want to treat, or what, what would be your, your obstacle, like that you have in, in further using and using the abdominal acupuncture the way you want to? And is anybody here have any, have you all heard of the tunnel acupuncture before? Have you, as any learned it before? I think we studied it before. No. Okay. So this is all entry-level. Okay, that's good. Moving patients from making that transition. Certainly, Diane, there is this initial step of, you know, using abdominal acupuncture, trying to make something work, but having to fall back on what we know already. So that's a question that does come up: Can you combine abdominal acupuncture with other acupuncture systems? The answer is yes, and quite often there is a transition there, which if you want to become an abdominal acupuncture specialist, you do spend some time doing both, or several things, to get someone better until you can really refine and get the results you want with just using abdominal acupuncture. So Phyllis, you were, you've tried what we've taught on Thursday, and it was successful. Well, I'm very happy to hear that. I'm very happy to hear that. Correct location, correct point location. Yeah, point location is really, really important, and so is depth. This is, it's, as far as the system goes, point location accuracy is a huge hurdle to overcome if you want to practice as successfully; that's just, it's a nature of this system, and we're gonna talk more about that later, but yes, having, and having it—what I'm going to share with you this weekend is Dr. Bo's way of doing it, and this is kind of an inner-circle apprenticeship lesson, and we'll get, we'll get back to more of that, but I'm going to share with you how he, he locates the points. Doesn't seem to be as effective as it claims for pain, but seems to work for calming, energizing. So achene D, that, that isn't also a, I would say a, in the beginning of learning it, there, and not being able to differentiate what types of pain it would be most appropriate for it, can seem that way, and I would agree with you that in certain situations, like with excess pain, you know, an acute pain conditions, sometimes abdominal acupuncture is not the most effective for a pain. However, for these chronic pain conditions and for pain conditions that don't seem to respond to other things, sometimes abdominal acupuncture can be magical in that, in that sense. So then I'll share some my experience with that. Okay, the box is covering my face on the computer; is it this? Oh, okay, because the survey is going on. Okay, so when they, when the—okay, so I think we're done with—let's see, one last one here. So basically, this isn't a yes or no question: Are people expecting a very basic course on abdominal acupuncture? Is that what people are expecting? There you go. Working from the ground up, because I know the people who might be coming in with more experience, and I'm sure there are other teachers out there. I mean, I'm, I'm thinking that I'm teaching not only to some, you know, younger acupuncturists—about younger, I mean younger in the profession who are just kind of starting out and looking for a path—and there are probably plenty of really experienced acupuncturists as well as teachers, teachers of other acupuncture Tricias; they're, they're experts in, in, you know, in the audience. One thing about abdominal acupuncture, at least this entry-level, the entry-level portion of this, it is kind of like, for those of us who live in the United States, the DMV, at the Department of Motor Vehicles—for those of you tuning in internationally, the Department of Motor Vehicles—we consider to be the great, we consider to be the great leveler, and that is this matter who you are and how great a VIP or you all have to go to the, we all have to go to the DMV if you want to dry off, you'll have to wait in line; it's, it's the great leveler. So in some ways, it's, it's a, the entry-level of abdominal acupuncture is like that, so I can teach it to people, and you know, and attendees from various levels, right, because I'm really introducing this new system, right? Sorry. So, and that's scented, it's okay. So the comprehension of how to implement that's something we're definitely gonna, I'm going to share with you. Okay, within the context of treating musculoskeletal pain of the head, neck, and upper extremity; that's really the idea behind the class. Very alright. One other thing is I'm from New York, and while I don't have a New York accent, although I could talk the New York accent, I do tend to talk quickly. If I, if I'm talking too quickly and the, it's not coming through clearly on, in the, in the webinar viewing audience, please just let me know, and I will, and I will slow down. I might get carried away. Any other pertinent questions or technical questions before I begin? All right, a quiet chat box in a quiet room means I can begin. Okay, so as we take away the chat box now, or the poll, so now, I mean, I can't see myself on the screen, but I assume that everyone can write, and okay, so here is the, the main objectives for this course, right? It's musculoskeletal pain for head, neck, in the upper extremity using abdominal acupuncture. The four, or a kind of five things you only want to focus on is that basic theory of Bo's method of abdominal acupuncture, and that is where you will learn how to apply it, right? How to apply it, the way of thinking behind it, and you'll find that it is not a unique, it's entirely unique release, the way I'm going to explain it; it's not entirely unique, but it's a very important way of thinking in our modern, in our modern time with the diseases that we have now; it's an important way of thinking. The second thing we're going to focus on is point function and, and point location techniques. They said this is, this is an important step, right, in the process of learning abdominal acupuncture; it really is, and doing it quickly, efficiently, and accurately is something I really want people to be able to take away. So that's why I asked people…
To you know, make sure you print out some of these charts that I'm asking you to print out. So having paper copies is going to be helpful. Having rulers, these 30-centimeter rulers, is going to be helpful, and some of the charts and things that I use in addition to those blank charts, like these miraculous turtle chart things like that—having some of this is going to be helpful to you on hand so that you can go ahead and print if you're not here in the audience. All yeah, so important location and techniques is important.
So the treatment application protocol—this is what we're talking about—is Dr. Boyle's way of teaching you how to apply abdominal acupuncture, the way that he applies it, which he has, you know, filtered through and over time. And so this, these, this is this is a good way to do it, and it will make it easier for you. So we'll talk about those things now. Some of these things can feel quite dry, but I do believe that it's necessary to go through it.
And then lastly, we're going to go through these point formulas for these diseases of the head, neck, and upper extremities. We will be covering these diseases, time allowing. We might talk about others impromptu, but for now, this is the focus. Now, if you successfully complete this course, then you will be invited to come to the second course for the level two part. And this course, in this level two course, you'll cover again—it's musculoskeletal pain—and it's for the lower half of the body, of the—oh well, the upper back, lower back, and the lower extremity. So this will complete the musculoskeletal pain picture. So having these two weekends, in there we'll go over some advanced point function and point location techniques. We will cover these diseases, as I said before, of the back and lumbar area and the lower extremity, and we also will cover some evaluation techniques. Now things like rheumatoid arthritis as well as in this next, next, next level, level three, with just intro to internal medicine and clinical intensive—I've not taught before in the US, but I will be teaching it in part, if not in part, of the next, next, next weekend workshop. So, grip becomes—doing the next weekend workshop will be combining level two and some information from level three, and this is where we'll be going to more advanced theory, talking about the regulation of Qi in the body, purpose specifically, and how we can treat these various beginnings of internal medicine disease. So that's coming up in the next weekend workshop in December.
Now, Dr. Boyle has been teaching around the world and in China. He has a vast, a relatively large number of apprentices, including—excuse me—several at the Guangdong Hospital Traditional Chinese Medicine, where he was a PhD mentor for a number of years. And he has, at least at the time, the department heads of these various departments—cardiovascular department, the gynecology department, emergency medicine department, neurology acupuncture—are all his apprentices, and they've been conducting a lot of research in these areas that you see here. So abdominal acupuncture is not just used for treating musculoskeletal problems; it's not just used for treating problems of, you know, of the gastrointestinal system, but it has a really broad range in which it's being used and applied, and research is being done. So while this is going on internationally, I was not planning on teaching this formally in the next course, although I will, if there's time allowing, offer some of this information.
So what do I use abdominal acupuncture in my practice? Number one: chronic and deficient diseases. This is very—one of the most common diseases we face, and it's, you know, I find it to be very effective in this situation. So I've been—one of my principal ways of treating in this situation—I do often in these situations combine it with Zhou acupuncture, primarily because I'm thinking—when I talk about Zhou acupuncture—it's primarily someone—doctors or who studied and was a former apprentice of Dr. Yang Wei Jia—has developed a system, what I would call Taoist domes acupuncture, or kind of her, or a very system of acupuncture based upon Taoist alchemy. So I'm very interested in how that works in combination with abdominal acupuncture. So treating these chronic inefficient diseases where I'm really trying to open up the Ren and Du channels and things like that, I'm quite often looking to combine it with Zhou acupuncture as part of the Qi regulation. So it's chronic inefficient diseases, neurological diseases, sequela from stroke—right, CVA is a big problem. This—when I have someone who is suffering or recovering from a stroke—abdominal acupuncture is the principal treatment that I use for them. It is the principal treatment that I use. Other conditions like Parkinson's disease—I'm starting to have some more of these patients filter into my practice—essential tremor, I'm also using this almost as well, not exclusively, but as part of the, as part of the main treatment I don't know that I'm using for them. For needle-sensitive patients—I have patients who are—one in particular I can think of—has needle phobia, right, but she tolerates abdominal acupuncture. This patient tolerates abdominal acupuncture, so that makes it very—when I—if I'm using the finished needle in liver 3 and trying to be as gentle as possible, it doesn't seem to be as easy as just popping in those needles and regulating her, her liver Qi on the abdomen. So needle-sensitive patients, patients with hysteria of various kinds—that it's really very, very, very helpful system. And as I've mentioned before, I integrate and I use it—I do use it and integrate it with another system, so it is possible to do that.
So these next few slides are to say what is abdominal acupuncture, and I kind of pulled these slides in some ways from Dr. Boyle's original PowerPoints from that I was using for teaching. So doctor—so China abdominal acupuncture really enjoys a quite a bit of domestic popularity in—and most international popularity, particularly in Europe. As I said before, Italy, France has become a big place for abdominal acupuncture. And for Dr. Boyle, would say you'll see there's an integration with Western medicine. So as someone who was in China for 18 years and spent a lot of time doing standing meditation, you know, in with, with, with various teachers, or with one particular teacher in mind who I love dearly, I guess I should say, but about studying Chinese medicine with various teachers in what I call the, what's called the folk, or the minjian, you know, minjian yisheng—the folk doctors and the folk scholars—and varying very traditionalists, I was very much against what I felt was, in Chinese called the jie—street um pi—in that sense, this academic or intuitional institutionalized Chinese medicine, which seemed to be very theoretical but not very practical, and there was a high reliance on Western medicine. And I really, I really rejected that, but over time, you know, when I was interested in Dr. Boyle and I see what so what he was doing with abdominal acupuncture—not trying to have Western medicine absorbed into Chinese medicine in some way but rather the reverse of that—so Chinese medicine taking from Western medicine what is helpful and useful, I became much more open and accepting. And that is one thing that Dr. Boyle would say that it is evidence that in a world where Western medicine dominates, there is a way that we can basically absorb Western medicine into our, into our practice. And I know in the United States that is—that is really at the caters—there is generally respect among Chinese and Western—from Chinese medicine people towards Western medicine and the use of things like the physical exam and other things as part of the practice.
So what are we doing today? First of all, we're going to go through the basic theory. This is going to be the L here—on this sort—stands for lecture. This is primarily lecture, and in this situation, being it's a webinar, it's going to—but most of things will be lecture, but they're going to—as much as possible—I'm going to do is some activity, which is what the A stands for. We're going to do an intro, a meet and greet with miraculous tortoise. I'm going to introduce the three systems of abdominal acupuncture to you, and then within those three systems, how they're, how they're applied, how they're—how Dr. Boyle integrates these systems. So you have the structure of abdominal acupuncture, and then the way of thinking—like the Dao of abdominal acupuncture—how do you integrate these three systems together? So an intro to—then after that, we're going to go through the points, and this is, this is a big part of this weekend—not only the location of the function of the points but how to locate them, right? And so we're going to do a demo and discussion on the location of Ren 16. I hope to have some willing participants in the classroom to help me with that. We're going to be doing point location on Ren 60. I'll need you all to either help with being a body or to help to locate. And so we do some exercises on that. And this is where I originally—when I was talking with Donna about this—I wanted people in their webinar viewing, and webinar viewing audience to have someone around at home. So if you do have a spouse, if you have a child, or someone else at some point that you can begin to, that you can try to experiment—experiment with the location of Ren 16—that would be really helpful. And like my one of my colleagues now, who started studying abdominal acupuncture with me when I first got back—when she first took the class—she was had a very strong attitude. I'm like, you know, I've been a practicing acupuncturist for ten years; I know how to find Ren 16. What we'll find is that there is—we want to get us all on the same page, you know, using the same location method, because that is important for the, the accuracy and location of points down below. So if there actually is something to it—I'm not discounting that you all have—many people have a lot of experience and Ren 16, you know how to do it—but we want to do it the way Dr. Boyle does it, so we have the same—we're working on the same page. So we're going to do some—we'll do these location techniques. I will do some—we'll do some guided charting, which is why I wanted you to have—again, the ruler, some blank paper, those charts—I'm going to do some bringing some guided work with that. So the idea in this, in, in day one here is really to get your mind familiar and you know, orient it around not only the miraculous tortoise but the chart that we use to help us, you know, locate points in our mind and do our treatment, you know, kind of clinical plan. And then, of course, I will demo all this tomorrow. We're going to do some question and answer, interview as necessary. We're going to do needling technique, which we might actually get to this afternoon, but I'm not sure, so I'm putting that for tomorrow. And then the application protocol, safety, and then we're going to go into the diseases of the neck and upper extremity. So tomorrow's me primarily, primarily lecture. Any questions about that before I move on? You know, there are a lot of Chinese speakers in the audience here, or there—I know there are—here, everyone here, you speak Mandarin or any—or no? Okay, so I'm—if there is, and it's necessary for me to clarify something in Chinese, I could do that. May Ont? Okay, martini, let's leave that question for later on, after some of these questions that are not kind of directed towards the material, and material just taught. I'm going to ask you to either, you know, copy and paste your question into a text file and save it. Towards the end, if I don't get to it now, I will, I will get to it towards the end if you remind me. So okay, now the easy part—abdominal acupuncture.
So as I said, Dr. Boyle has done my acupuncture—it's, it's, it's system developed at Dr. Boyle's reunion. It is touted in China as being safe, painless, highly effective, and quick and easy to apply. This picture of Dr. Boyle in the early 90s where he was given an award for technological advances in his town of Shanty. Dr. Boyle does come from a family lineage of famous doctors—we say venerable, venerable doctors of Chinese medicine. His father was much more skilled with herbs, but Dr. Boyle has developed the acupuncture side of that. For me, being in China and then through the 90s and, you know, through to that, you know, there—through a decade and after the year 2000—I found a lot of acupuncture was very rough, a lot of strong stimulation, a lot of needling Ashi points, and, you know, points that are also chosen based upon theory that didn't necessarily seem to have a resonance or effect that I thought that they should have. So when I was interested in abdominal acupuncture, I found—Wow, well, number one, this is a really gentle system, right? We're using really thin needles, really shallow depths, and there's little or no pain experienced by, by, by the patients. That to me was wonderful. You know, I remember actually I was, I was needling a patient in the Beijing Hospital of Chinese Medicine, and I was getting complaints from her—not because my acupuncture, you know, hurt or anything—but that it wasn't strong enough. It's like, no, no, when you—goes in—has to Z, she said, that's not even to feel it. And I was not—I was not giving that to her. I was putting it in slowly, looking for the arrival of Qi, and she's like, yeah, that doesn't work. So this system though speaks much more to me in that sense, and that's number one. Number two, I was able to see Dr. Boyle practicing this in ways that made a very profound impact on me in terms of the verification of the fact that meridians existed. If the majority of acupuncture I was seeing as a master student at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, I still kind of felt the majority of acupuncture I was seeing was a sure stuff. It was hard for me to say—I can—that doesn't take any skill level whatsoever; you just need to learn up isn't basic needle technique, and you can treat anything—just put a needle where it hurts. And when I saw needles put in other parts of the body, basically I didn't see that great in effect. So when I saw Dr. Boyle, after taking his class with him—the level one class—the first time, I think, for four or five times, you know, he had a patient where, you know, one woman who had had a nodule on her breast—he put needles in on the belly, rolled up to that, and I unabashedly had my thumb on the nodule, and it dissolved under my finger—housing. That's the first time I'd seen that—something that, something that powerful—or a woman who had a young woman who had an essential tremor who came back from the UK after doing a period of study abroad and, and had this essential tremor and thyroid dysfunction. One Dr. Boyle's students was putting needles in and called Dr. Boyle over, and Dr. Boyle adjusted some needles, added three more needles, and the woman's tremor stopped—after a minute—tremor stopped, and the next day when she came back, she was like, no tremors are gone, I'm fine. So I didn't follow up that patient after that, but that in and of itself was very powerful to me. So this gentle system, getting such powerful results intrigued me. And that's—and then the next thing on this slide is that it's one of the things it does is that it supports the harmonization and tonification of the Dong-Qi as its primary component, right? So this is why Dr. Boyle would say it's really effective in treating chronic and deficient diseases, because it's—and we talked about and we'll talk about a little bit later about how pain can result, and there are two ways and many of—one, one that many of us are familiar with—is poems about home, boot homes at home. So pain that is the result from an obstruction of a channel is a common way of thinking, but there's another way, and we'll get to that in a moment. As I said before, treats a wide, very wide range of conditions in various fields of medicine. So disease prevention, clinical and rehabilitative medicine—for disease prevention is one interesting aspect—is I think a couple years back there was an article that was published by the Guangdong Hospital Traditional Chinese Medicine's radiology department in which they looked in functional MRI and I believe Doppler blood flow to the brain before and after needling with abdominal acupuncture, and what they did—what they discovered was that abdominal acupuncture can increase blood perfusion for the brain. Now that aspect itself has both effects—and disease prevention and enhancement, right? For those of us who are using our heads all the time, using our brains, we need more blood to our brain; it could prevent things like—begin to help and prevent things like Alzheimer's disease, potentially, potentially, or other cognitive impairment issues. Depression and anxiety is something that also Dr. Boyle might think of in that regards. For clinical and rehabilitative medicine, patients who have some kind of brain trauma—I've used this in the house and the Lutheran Medical Center to treat a woman with a tumor that was being removed from her, from, from her brain, and she had an extreme headache, and I was able to use it in that situation and very successfully relieved her headache pain. And for rehabilitative medicine, as I said, using it with stroke patients—I had one patient that I've followed now for a few years, a brain stem hemorrhage patient that I've been treating for the better part of three years who has been slowly getting better. I would say slowly getting better. He was—I had this patient two years out of his, of his brain stem hemorrhage, and he was a miracle; he was alive to begin with. His wife got him to the hospital in 14 minutes, which saved his life, but then after getting to the hospital and from then until the Tim night—so almost two years had passed—and he was getting other acupuncture, but when I started treating with abdominal acupuncture, things started to change. It was slow, but things started to change, and up to that point there had been really no change. So even two years out and in such a severe, severe stroke situation, I was able to get some change. He went from not being able to swallow and having only relying on a feeding tube to being able to swallow and eat with his family and have a meal with him, and that was a huge change. He went from walking on a walker that was called like an X-pot—enough for those of you who are specializing in or know much about this—but X-pot is a kind of like a walking machine; you might have seen from like a Robocop or something where you actually put your body inside, you got a—it does—it walks, essentially; it walks for you, or walks a percentage of what you need. And when he started in that, he was at 80 percent machine and 20 percent himself, and by the time he was in January of this year, he was now not using the X-pot; he could walk with just a walker, right? He had graduated out of that. So, big—in essence, there's some big changes; he's still not 100 percent better; there are still many problems, but abdominal acupuncture was helpful in that situation. Good morning from Chicago.
So as I said, Dr. Boyle is not so well known here in the United States, but he is well known in Europe, and he's been teaching since 2001 in Italy, and he goes back every year in the spring to teach in Italy. Now in France, he's there quite a bit because one of his principal, principal apprentices—Wang Young Joe—maybe some of you know Wang Young Joe; he is the founder of Jagan—right—I'm going to call it Cheek Acupuncture in English—but he's one of his apprentices, and he goes there frequently. He's in quite a bit of research in France now with one of the universities where Wang Young Joe teaches and with depression, depression, and anxiety. He has been in California here before—maybe some of you who are sitting in this room recognize some of these attendees here—but it hasn't been here in a couple of years. There's been a couple of years—a little bit more about me—and that is, you know, I am Dr. Boyle's apprentice. I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Boyle through Dr. Zola actually, and after seeing him—after seeing him translating for a bit—Dr. Boyle accepted me as his, as his apprentice, and it's been a—he's deeply, in some ways, emotional and connecting with, with this teacher. He's been really a great support to me over the years, and so I am very grateful for his…
For his teachings, and one of the things he helped me do was to practice in China. I would, in addition to teaching for him and A.B. Donnell acupuncture courses there, also be doing clinical work and clinical guidance in various hospitals. One of the places was in Ningbo. So here I am, teaching in those places and doing demonstrations. When he taught in Beijing, I was also asked to translate and help as well. So I have a bit of experience doing this. And what my hope is, that this experience that I have and sort of learning from Dr. Baugh, I can transmit to you. And that is really what my goal is. I hope that all of you who really want to learn abdominal acupuncture can, you know, and are able to practice it.
One thing that I also got was a lot of experiences at the Guangdong Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. That was in a queue for your specialist there for a year, and using both Doyle acupuncture and abdominal acupuncture in a couple of the clinics there. And I was just recommending that if you are thinking of going to China and you want to study acupuncture there, Guangdong is probably a better place to go than Beijing. Because in Beijing, acupuncture has really looked at much more as just treating neurological conditions, and people you'll see a lot of Bell's palsy, a lot of stroke, but you don't see a lot of other things. And people in southern China really emphasize the use of acupuncture for all kinds of problems, and it's much more widely used, and you can see a lot of different kinds of diseases and people getting treated. So if anybody wants information on that, I'm very happy to help you with that as well.
So what's the goal of this course? It is obviously to get you teaching, to get you using it right away. That's what my hope is. So as Dr. Bois quotes, you know, first teach them the skills, you know, so make sure you have the skills down, then you go over the theory in more and more greater detail, and then finally, try to elucidate them in the meaning of what's behind it. So we're focused really mostly on the skills and the basic theory in this class. So now we're going to go over, as I said, the general introduction is over, and now we're going into the, as I said, the basic structure of the systems on the abdomen of, or of the abdominal acupuncture, what systems he invokes, and how we, what what is we're trying to treat, or what what levels and tissues in the body we're trying to treat, and what that means. And then second, we're gonna go and see how he integrates those things; what is the way of thinking. So first is the structure and then the way of thinking.
So some of the theoretical foundations of abdominal acupuncture. This is, this is sort of again a little overview of saying what Dr. Baugh's overall way of thinking is, you know, in this system. And that is that first, on the abdomen, Dr. Baugh has differentiated out, discovered and differentiated out three different systems, and those systems are the foundation, structural foundation of abdominal acupuncture. The second is that Dr. Baugh has his way of thinking, which integrates these systems right to treat all kinds of diseases, but it's often being touted as treating chronic and deficient type diseases. And then lastly, as I mentioned, Dr. Baugh is not someone who rejects Western medicine. Matter of fact, Dr. Baugh spent the early part of his career working in a Western medicine hospital in China as the head of the acupuncture department. So he had a lot of interaction with Western medicine practice, Western medicine practitioners, and in that, in network, in that research, you know, come to understand how Western medicine is practiced and is, and thinks it's an important part of being a doctor, understanding this tradition. So there are parts of it in which he can integrate into his system, that includes diagnosis, some anatomy, anatomy and physiology, as well as pathology, into his treatment system.
So now we're going to those three systems. What are the three systems that I've been talking about here? The first is this Shen Shu channel system, so the SCS, oftentimes I catch myself saying this, Shun congenital channel system, which is another way of talking about this sort of very prenatal system, and in some ways that exists on the abdomen. This is Dr. Baugh's discovery; it is the hallmark of abdominal acupuncture. So this is the first system, and it is Dr. Baugh's discovery. The second system is the 12 regular channels and extraordinary vessels; obviously not Dr. Baugh's discovery. But one thing he did was he was able to differentiate that the level in the abdomen at which this system exists, and therefore how to needle it, and essentially not needle the first system and then not needle this third system, which is the post-heaven eight octants thumb-full system. This is how you regulate that Song-Phone. So these are the three systems that are on the abdomen. The first one, the central channel system, this is what it looks like. Is there anybody out there who is seeing this for the first time? Anybody, are you seeing this for the first time? Yeah. This is this particular chart. Okay. Is there anyone out there? Yes. Wow. All right. So there's, that's that's really helpful to know. So this is the chart that you are going to become very familiar with in the next a couple of days, in different ways in which I'm going to go about it, trying to help you to help you. So if I can, I guess I don't have the ability to point to the pointer. Hmm, I guess I can try to, it's right behind me. Okay, I didn't know that. Okay, so I'm gonna point on the pointer here, just to give you an idea, you know. So this obviously, this miraculous tortoise, right? I mean, it's called miraculous tortoise one because it looks like him, it looks like a tortoise, alright, the way it's, the way it's set up. And this is not uncommon, right? It's not uncommon for those of you who know Korean hand acupuncture or Dr. Zola's system of acupuncture on the hand, right? This looks like a tortoise, right? Of course, in Chinese culture, the tortoise, that's a single assign of longevity, right? It's, it's an important, so it's an interesting coincidence that the things look like a tortoise. The reason it's called miraculous is because one day Dr. Baugh was walking in a park in Beijing, and Jerome Jie had left his characters there on one of the stones, and he's the former prime minister of China, when Zhang Jia Ming was the President or chairman, and whom he had left his characters on on a stone, and there was something to the effect of Shun Gui, right, the miraculous or spiritual, spiritual tortoise. So he invoked that to call his, this is called a Shun Gui Tu, the chart. And so looking at it here, I'm simply starting the middle of this, and here is Ren 8, right? Shouldn't rip, this is why it's called a Shen Shu, a congenital Ren channel system, the SCS. And starting here at Ren 8, right, we have, I guess to say it, bands of points, right, or points that radiate out in the shape of this, we'll call it, it radiates out in the shape of the of a tortoise that cover all the anatomical parts of a human body, right? And so if Ren 8 is the center here, moving up as high as we can go here, at least we've seen here is Ren 12, right, which is related to the mouth. Okay. And then going down on the other way, all the way to the bottom here is Ren 3, which is related to us, the coccyx. So the spine runs along the midline of the Ren channel. Then you have just on either side of the Ren channel, the kidney channel, and there are points that correspond to essentially the same area on the kidney channel on the anatomical human body that run along here. So for example, Kidney 17 corresponds to the intersection of the neck and the shoulder, right here. And then moving out from here, we have points on the stomach channel, right, that correspond to the least, the the beginning of the limbs, or the side of the body, or the base of the body. So, and then there are other points, additional points that are out here. Dr. Baugh has added these point sets that are titled A, B, A, B 1, A, B 2, A, B 3, and these A, B points are considered abdominal points that are their point parts of Dr. Baugh's discovery that correspond to other anatomical areas. For example, A, B 1 corresponds to the elbow, A, B 2 corresponds to the wrist, and down here, A, B 4 corresponds to the knee, and A, B 6 corresponds to the ankle.
So this chart has, wanted to say this, number one, it has points that are 12 points that are given to us, we can see. So for example, Ren 8 corresponds to the umbilicus. We'll see here that Ren 10 corresponds to the seventh cervical vertebra, Ren 11 to the first thoracic vertebra, and these points are given to us, just like Stomach 24 is given to us as corresponding to the shoulder joint. However, there's this large green area in between here, hey, that is not to say that the large green area is devoid of points, it's just that these points Dr. Baugh is not able to compact completely and a hundred percent accurately give us the location of various points. So for example, the pectoral muscle, the pectoral muscle is going to be in here, but it's not, everybody comes into the clinic complaining about pectoral muscle pain. Most people come in complaining of shoulder pain. So Dr. Baugh has needled this shoulder hundreds, if not thousands of times, you know, treating it, and can confirm that this point here, Stomach 24, corresponds to the shoulder joint. But where would the coracobrachialis be? Where would the the pectoral, pectoral major muscle be? Where would this, where would the infraspinatus muscle be? These points are still there, right, they're just Dr. Baugh can't give us the exact location. So this isn't generally the outline, right, of how we locate points, but not necessarily all the points given to us specifically. In other words, there's room for you to use your artistic, you know, acupuncture skills and to locate the other points. Turtle shell acupuncture, interestingly, Dr. Baugh would not call this turtle shell acupuncture, turtle acupuncture, because although one, one person, one of his, when somebody who studied with him in China or read the book anyway, it says, Isis, I do abdominal acupuncture, and he said, I said, well how do you do it? Well, every patient, I don't care what disease they have, I just put all the needles in all the points. He says that is called turtle shell acupuncture or turtle acupuncture.
So here's a brief, uh, we're gonna go over this again, there'll be plenty for discussion, but there was one point, it was the last point, I'm not quite sure which point you're talking about. We're gonna go over this chart several times, people are gonna practice with it, but I want to give, just as might, we might be thinking in our Western minds, what is it, you know, what is this thing, right? We've heard of things like micro systems in acupoint, what did these things, let me give you some explanations for it. First, I'm going to give you what I'm gonna call a phenomenological explanation, that is the phenomena of this, and that is that, you know, from what Dr. Baugh discovered is that there are bands of points that extend from the umbilicus, from a computer, from a, from a high concentration, right, to a rather low concentration, right, from from a high density to a low density, that correspond to the occult human, but anatomical human body, which is what I just explained. There are points there that just, when you put it, if you needle it, right, whereas he needled them, the person's anatomical location in there, and their periphery, and the peripheral would respond. That put a needle in the, in, you know, somewhat 24, all of a sudden this, the patient's shoulder feels better, right? So as a phenomena, this is what it is, it's just these points and these points, this is not exclusive to abdominal acupuncture, right? I do know that there are people who practice Japanese acupuncture, probably maybe some listening, and I told this story once before that once I had the pleasure of seeing Keiko Matsumoto working with a patient at the Pecan Symposium in 2008, and this patient was complaining of all kinds of pain problems, and she went both of her shoulders, and having studied some Dom Lac, if I'm sure, in watching this, I was able to observe that this is that although Kiko did, I do not think had this kind of system in her mind when she needled the rights, that my 24, the patient's right arm, shoulder went pinched, right, right the shoulder, right arm shoulder pain disappeared, and then she spent a lot of time healing other things to get the left one to disappear, but not needling Stomach 24 on the left. But I thought it was interesting that this is not something that is unique to abdominal acupuncture. This is a phenomenon that exists on the belly that Dr. Baugh discovered. The second way of explaining it would be something that would be hypothetical or theoretical, I'm deciding which which word to use here, theoretical or hypothetical. Hypothetical is something that's not tested, or theoretical, something that's well tested, and well, there's been no scientific testing of this system and what it, what it means. Dr. Baugh has proposed his theory based upon his, you know, decades of clinical research working with congenital problems like autism, and potentially, off, but that's potentially a congenital problem, not necessarily, but autism, cerebral palsy, and that this is not simply another micro system. He would suggest to you that this is actually the fetus Qi and blood modulation system. He would, through deductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, tell you or say that, you know, we all, a lot of our body needs Qi and blood, whether it's inside the womb or not inside the womb, and when we're, when we, when we are, when we're born, we eat, we eat through, we eat food, and our organs produce Qi and blood and send it through the post-heaven system, which is our 12 regular regular meridians to nourish our body. But when we're in, when we're a fetus, all of that nutrition is coming through the umbilical cord, and if they're coming through the umbilical cord, it's got to be dispersed and and transported some way, and that way, Doctor Baugh would say there must be, if it must be there, it must be transported, then there must be a transport system. And so he would say that that trend, that what we're seeing here in the belly is the remnants of that transport system. And so he would suggest here that it is the fetus Qi and blood modulation system. So that is as far as I'm going to go into the theory, we can maybe have more time, we can talk about it, but that's what he's proposing. We're more concerned with the last, last point, so I'm going to go, go to that after next day. So clinically, what we're concerned about is that the fact that it works, it's phenomenologically, it's there, and that we can use it in our anatomic acupuncture to pinpoint where we want the Qi and blood to go. In other words, you'll see how Dr. Baugh uses this combined with the other two systems to move Qi and blood or pinpoint where you want the steam boat to go and release specific sinews, temperature in the in pain conditions. So is this, is this a blueprint of the second brain? Do you need the change? We are going to go to a tape change, and so two seconds, oh, 10 seconds, that's too, it's too long, you.